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dereklam writes "The popularity of the iPod could be boosting Macs' popularity as well. News.com reports that 6 percent of iPod users have made the switch from PCs to Macs. An additional 7 percent said they are planning to dump their old PC for an Apple machine, according to the survey." I wish the linked story had more details; it's not clear from the results mentioned whether there's a strong causal relationship here.

Well, if the peripheral is cool enough, the OS/hardware may not be that important. Ease of use and coolness factor count for a lot in the choice of gadget, you know. I do know for myself that the iApps (mostly iTunes these days, Picasa is quite good) are keeping me on the Mac. Although I wonder if the opposite happens: people who "defect" to Windows because iTunes/iPod also work with Windows and you can buy a hell of a lot more hardware four your dollar/euro in Intel/AMD land than in Applistan (example in p

So? You chose a top-of-the line professional model. Current Intel 17' notebooks are also >2K (PowerBook is $2700 in US). Otherwise you can "make do" with an $1300 14' iBook. Actually my friend is looking for an Intel notebook with comparible price and features. Here is what he wants:

Reasonable weight. No 8 pound monsters, please

3D graphics, TV output

Built in wireless and CD burner

5 or more hours battery life without swapping

Pleasent, big keys on the keyboard

No sharp edges or breakable components on the outside when folded

A sturdy case in some color other than black or "Windows XP Space theme". Please no Dell black plastic"

The eMachines notebook is very powerful, but heavy at 7.5lbs. It averaged about 2.5-3hrs of battery life. I lugged it around for a semester at college, but now I use it as a DTR only. It includes 54mbps wireless, plenty of usb ports, an excellent screen, firewire, etc.

At first I was concerned about reliablity from an eMachines product, but I've been pretty happy with the purchase thus far. Although, I have yet to take full advantage of the AMD64. XP64 is still in beta and not all drivers are available. 64bit linux kernels have become stable, but there are equal driver issues. For now, I have a dual boot with XP Pro and Mandrake 10.1 both 32bit.

I bought a new 15" Powerbook using Apple's Student ADC program ($2k) about 4-5 months after buying the eMachines notebook. I also bought an IPod as an accessory with it, or was it the otherway around:).

The Powerbook is much thinner and lighter. Its looks about 10x sleeker than the eMachines (thought the eMachines notebook does have some neat blue leds). It gets about 3 - 3.5hrs of battery life.

The Powerbooks power saving and management features are far superior. It can be put to sleep within a second and equally wake up just as fast. When you close the screen, it goes instantly to sleep. In the short time it takes to flip open the cover, it will be back on and your application are just as you left them. Although this is possible on a PC, it takes signicantly more time and has a hand full of compatibilty issues that may prevent it from working at all. Apple did an excellent job engineering their hardware and operating system to get the optimum performance. Its also pretty efficient in sleep mode. I've had my powerbook sleeping for a couple days, and when I woke it up, it was still at 99% charge.

Some other neat feature Powerbook include the back lit keyboard, built in mic, firewire 400/800, and bluetooth. It also has a sensor to detect ambient light. During low light situations, the screen will dim and the keyboard will light up automatically.

I primarly bought the Powerbook to play with OSX, and I've been extremely impressed with it. Its very stable, and I've rebooted only when forced to for software updates (uptimes usually span weeks). The UI in general just seems more refined. The dock and finder are just capable if not more than XP taskbar or KDE/Gnome eqivalents. I particularly like Expose (an extremely easy way to switch between open tasks). It also has a unix backend. You can open up a terminal and many familiar tools from *nix are available. Its also easy to develop crossplatform code for other unix like systems, which is something I've used for some of my computer science classes

After buying my Powerbook, I've definetely become a believer in Apple products and OS X. Though, I still wouldn't be able to make a complete switch. There are still many things you can still only do on a PC. For example, certain games are only developed for the PC. Though, there seems to be more and more games being released for both. Theres also some application that only work on PC. However, this is less of an issue since Microsoft has released Virtual PC for Mac. But what I'd probably miss the most is plethora of options/peripherals available and the resulting prices in the PC market.

I think you can defintely find better deals in the PC market because of the competition there. The 50% off Dell notebooks is a perfect example. You pay a premium for the Powerbook and Apple hardware in general, but I think its worth it. But if you're just looking for a notebook or computer that gets the job done, you can probably find PC that does it for less.

I switched to a PC to play more games in a better way, I sadly believed the people telling me there weren't any significant difference between Mac and PCs as far as plug and play, stability and speed was concerned nowadays.

A little hint to all those saying this like parrots: it's not true, at all. Pcs crash a lot more, fail more often, cost more for the same power (SAME, not number wise but real-life wise) are constantly being attacked (my anti-virus keep finding stuff about every day, adaware doesn't even remove all of the spyware I get...) and need protection software constantly monitoring the computer for malware, which in turn seriously slow it down and interfere with your normal operations (and YES I use firefox before some fuckin Linux asshole point his wisdom to me). The OS is still clunky as hell, you still have to press start to stop the OS and the interface is built around the concept that you want to work with the computer not on your creations.

In short I deeply regret my switch, I play games on my PC but have switched back to my old iBook dualUSB 500MHz for everything else, this little fellow let me do more stuf in a much more stable way than my 3.4GHz 1GB ram monster PC which cost me 4230$Canadian, monitor included.

for $2500 I'm having a rack-mount 1TB SATA RAID5 linux server built for home use.
For $1300 I can build a top of the line gaming machine. (I guess I could spend $2500 and get Alienware or Dell stamped on it.)

And that's exactly why the "Macs are overpriced because I can build my own box cheaper" doesn't hold water. When you buy a name-brand computer, you get all the guarantees, service, and convenience that go with it. Is it worth the extra cost? Maybe, maybe not. But as a person who has both built my own computer and bought a Mac, I believe it most definitely is. Of course, my Mac is a laptop -- if I were considering a Mac desktop (and I am, but not for a while) it might be less worth it (but still worth it).

Oh, and I don't mean to say that all name brands are worth it, and I wouldn't even consider a Dell or Alienware, but between the unique stuff Apple offers (OS X, for one) and their excellent support (e.g. fixing my iBook with a ~5 day turnaround with free overnight shipping, including shipping me the box to pack it in), Macs are absolutely worth their price.

Yes but at that price, you'll still have to wait 20 months longer for every game to come out. And some games probably would never reach Mac land.

I respect the iPod, though it's still buggy. That's a different story altogether.

This is an interesting turnaround. Because if you feel that way about an iPod, and a lot of people do, then you suddenly realise that in one area having an apple computer will be better. In fact, the area which apple excels in (no pun intended) is the iLife series. I have a friend who bought a powerbook solely for iMovie/iDVD, and others for GarageBand.

What it says is - as a PC user, if you like this stuff, you will always be on the back foot getting this stuff. Sure, it will come to the PC eventually (as the iPod did), but it will still be a second rate port. The best example of this at the moment is the iPod photo, and how they had to mangle in the photo support into iTunes for the PC users. But it still won't be as good as iPhoto.

And the likely hood that Apple will drop their platform and become a PC software vendor? Close to zero - they are a hardware company.

So, if you like using technology for most multimedia stuff, which includes music players such as the iPod (or airport express for the home music center) your choice is this:

Get a mac, or become a late adopter as stuff filters through to the PC. Sure, you will get games and business software first on a PC. But if you like playing music more, the most popular music player is the iPod (based on sales), and that will drive you to buying an apple computer first.

I cannot think of a time in the past where you could say this about apple - where there was a specific category of software where apple was better. Perhaps desktop publishing, or spread sheets, but that was a long time ago when the PC was a second rate option for these areas.

I kinda think that's the point of the story. People finding the iPod a sufficiently good reason to switch their OS is not a run of the mill event. How many people switch just because there's a neat new scanner out on the market? Or for a new printer? (Not counting high-end RIPs, of course, since they're pretty much stand-alone.)

I get the point but a lot of peripherals work better on a Mac. The iPod syncs better, importing and editing video is easier, and if you want to use iPhoto its a lot smoother than anything Ive seen on a PC. On top of this bluetooth and iSync.

The x86 PC has more options and cheaper options but I would rather have something work better than it be a few bucks cheaper and be a hassle in the long run.

The iPod brought attention to iBook or G5. They probably bought it, liked it and then thought, "hey, if iPod is this good, I ought to at least check out an iBook or G5." The rest is history.

iBooks are the single best device out there for college students and many others. Excellent form factor, easy to use, even easier to maintain, good bang for the buck. The main drawback is the Microsoft effect, which has convinced users that all computers are slow to start up, slow to wake up, hard to configure, hard to use, virus prone, etc. and all alike and therefore won't look at anything new.

If one gets over that, for whatever reason, then rational though has a chance to. The push can come from an iPod or elsewhere. e.g. I loaned one out for 2 hours to an "MS is good enough for me and I'm not changing" small business owner. At the end of the two hours, he stated that his next hardware purchase will be a Mac. But for most, iPod will be the wake up.

I was completely agreeing with you until I got to the last paragraph. Macs, at least the white ones, are not overpriced. In fact, I comparison shopped for a thin-and-light and ended up buying a 12" iBook because it was the best value, even without factoring in OS X. And considering the fact that to truly equate a PC with an iMac you'd have to price out the CPU plus the 17" or 20" widescreen LCD, iMac G5s are probably a better value too.

Personally, I choose my peripherals based on my OS/Hardware, not the other way around.

Hard to say. I think it has more to do with brand recognition than the desire to buy a computer that more "natively" supports your iPod. Because their purchase of the iPod has increased their brand recognition of Apple and also made them think, "Hey, this Apple company makes some cool stuff. If their computers are half as cool as this, it's sure to be pretty swell."

I used to buy peripherals based on os/hardware. However, I bought an iPod for my commute into NYC last summer. As a result of my positive experience, I purchased a powerbook last november, an iPod Mini for my girlfriend last February, Airport Express a couple of months ago, and I advised my Mom to get the iMac G5 about a month ago (which she loves by the way better than her previous PC running winxp). So lets see... after spending 500 bucks for an iPod, Apple has received a further $3500+ purely because I liked their little white music player. Case in point. I dont know how many others

Well, why there is probably less to this than meets the eye, there is probably more to it than you suggest.

It isn't about choosing your computer to suit your peripherals -- you can use an iPod with a Windows box. I think it's more like this. Maybe you had a flash based player before. Clunky, inelgant, with a totally brain damaged idea of what "style" entails. You get an iPod, and realize that it is everything your old player ought to have been: convenient, elegant and sleek.

Then one day while you are listening to your iPod and working on your probably popup infested computer, you have two epiphanies.

Don't be so sure he's an idiot... When you can't decide among several choices, because they're all good cars, sometimes little things like a 6-disc CD changer or XM radio can be the hair that balances the scale toward a particular model.

I know if I drove two cars with similar handling, price, and appealing appearence, the presence of something like an in-dash MP3 player or GPS navigation system would seal the choice. }:)

I notice that the article doesn't mention any people converting from apple to microsoft. Is this number zero? Or just not reported? Does nobody ever switch away from apple? If 6% of OSX users switch to XP because itunes is available on win32, the situation is pretty much a wash.

If 6% of OSX users switch to XP because itunes is available on win32, the situation is pretty much a wash.

First, I don't know the actual stats on people switching the other way. But even if 6% did switch the other way, it's still not a wash.

Why? Because the number of OS X users is different than the number of ipod users. Assuming (again, don't know the numbers, but it seems reasonable), that there are far far more ipod users than OS X users, 6% of a large number is much much more than 6% of a small number.

I had always thought that Mac users were a rabid, elitist group until I started using the iPod. It was an upgrade from my older iRiver player. I'm far too entrenched in my PC to switch, but I'll admit that I'm Mac-curious now.

Just be careful, and make sure you get the right mac for you. It is unwise to be hasty and just go out and buy the cheapest new computer available that runs OS X. I have known a few people who bought a new macintosh computer, only to find it didn't suit their needs. So, consult with your mac zealot and you too can overcome premature eMac-ulation.

Actually, there is a remote [apple.com]. It doesn't come with the iPod, but it's there. That's one good thing about the iPod, accessories galore! Yeah, most of them are over-priced, but oh well.

Also, you just need to face the fact that Ogg support just doesn't matter to 99.999% of the general population. Just be glad like we all should be that the iPod isn't the only choice we have. If/when ogg gains acceptance by a lot more people, then I think it's a given that the iPod will support it. FM-radio on the other

I have an iRiver iHP-120 as the others do. My wife has a 3G iPod. I've played with them both (the iPod and the iRiver that is, playing with my wife is none of your business).

1. The iHP has both optical and analog inputs and outputs. Headphones, Input and Output ports built in. I/O ports can be switched from either analog or optical. Very handy for playing mp3's over a home stereo with one simple and better-sounding TOSLINK connection than a miniplug-to-RCA adapter. No, I've never used the optical inp

I'm glad you've seen the truth:) I thought similar until about 6 months ago when I bought an iPod. The sheer quality and superb design work... when I look at it, I picture a team of dedicated designers who love what they do and are proud at the masterpiece they've created (so much so that they set their prices a little higer than others). I'm sure that's Apple's intention.

About a week or two later, I went out and bought a Powerbook, first Apple computer I've ever owned, and from my experience so far it defeinitely won't be the last:)

Back to the original point though, since getting the Apple products I've asked (after research of course) numerous questions to the Apple community on the official community boards at apple.com (Dr Smoke rocks) and mac-forums.com - both have resulted in very kind, helpful answers, usually perfectly presented/formatted, in clear English and backed up with facts+links. I've been truly stunned at just how nice, and helpful, people in the "Apple Community" tend to be.

You know, at the risk of sounding mildly troll-ish, some areas of the Linux community would really benefit from that kind of attitude. It could push Linux forward a long way.

There is a little elitism and OS-mockage in some of the posters, just like with any other OS, but no more than others.

"I've been truly stunned at just how nice, and helpful, people in the "Apple Community" tend to be."

Me too. Oh sure, in any large group there are the trolls and rude people. But by and large you get very helpful responses from the Apple community. I think part of it is the perceived niche status. People who feel they need to stick together to help each other out often do try to be more helpful.

Another part of it is there are fewer resources available for the Apple crowd compared to the Windows crowd, so there seems to be a feeling of 'Well, this site is fairly rare, better make it a good one.' So you get fewer resources, but often the quality of them equals the best of the Windows resources. End result: You have what you need.

And there has to be a sociological aspect to it as well. Apple users must be a self-selected subset of society, a group that is similar to, say, BMW or Mercedes buyers. People who like well-crafted machinery, good performance, ease of use. The kind of person who is drawn to these qualities may also tend to be helpful to their fellow Apple- (or BMW-) owner.

200 is a decent sample size for a survey. Most political polls range from 600-1000, and that's for the entire country. What would be more important to find out is if these people were solicited for their responses, or if they volunteered them.

Depends on what you define as "decent". At a 99% confidence level, a sample size of 200 means that the margin of error for this survey is +/- 9%. Even if you open it up to a 95% confidence level, the MOE is still +/- 7%. If you wanted to drop the margin of error down to +/- 3% at a 95% confidence level, you'd need a sample size of just over a thousand respondents.

You can. Plug the iPod in. When iTunes opens, select the iPod from the "Source" List, and then double click a track. The track will play fine.

Copying from the iPod is a different story. You'll have to download a freeware (sometimes GPL) app to do that, beacause Apple couldn't make it that easy to steal music and still pull off the iTunes Music Store.

The article clearly states that those people are not techs but "people with money". The switch to Apple seems an obvious choice if you can afford an expensive computer and you are neither a big techie or a hard-core gamer. I fail to see exactly where is the impact of the IPod here. Is that because it's the same "people with money" who can afford to buy one?

The switch to Apple seems an obvious choice if you can afford an expensive computer and you are neither a big techie or a hard-core gamer.

Gamer I'll give you, but hard core techie? No, don't think so. If you are are a techie the Mac opens up world's of *nix possibilities to you, and if and when you get tired of dinking with X Windows, etc, you have a great GUI for use.

But I personally use my Mac as a fileserver from which I serve video to our other systems (one iBook and an older PC), have a webdav server which we use to consolidate and share calendars, and the UW imapd server setup just for the hell of it.

And now that I think about it, even if you do mean "hardware techie", you can still get your jollies that way, too. When I switched to the Mac I hooked up and successfully mounted the NTFS drive from my old system and was able to get all my old crap off of that. (Can't write to NTFS, but you can read from it.)

Safari uses the KHTML engine which has benefited largely from Apple's improvements.

Printing uses CUPS, but it is much easier to setup on a Mac.

The shell is bash, but most Mac users never touch it.

The only part of Linux that gets "bashed" by Apple is the kludginess of the GUI, utilities, and applications. Apple has never said Linux or BSD is based on poor foundational technologies. They just don't have the user experience down.

I think the point you tried to make is obvious. Technically minded people are switching to Macintosh because of OS X. However, it is significant that non-technical people have been prompted to switch because of the Ipod.

Maybe I'm not looking at this deep enough, but what does a piece of hardware for playing MP3s have to do with personal computers? How different is this from, say, people switching from Mac to a Sony Notebook because they like their Sony DVD player?

Maybe I'm not looking at this deep enough, but what does a piece of hardware for playing MP3s have to do with personal computers?

I'd say it comes down to integration. Yes an iPod works with Windows, and using iTunes no less. On the Mac, however, the experience is very different: iTunes is only a single part of the puzzle. Every one of the iApps, from GarageBand to iMovie, integrate together to make doing any of their tasks hugely easier. It is this that makes using the iPod on the Mac a far nicer exper

Maybe I'm not looking at this deep enough, but what does a piece of hardware for playing MP3s have to do with personal computers?

Because people are deciding that a company which has given them such an easy to use piece of hardware that just works merit some consideration in the next computer. Not having seen the iTunes software, that may have been a factor.

Remember, people synch their iPods from their computers.

How different is this from, say, people switching from Mac to a Sony Notebook because they

The IPod interfaces well with the Mac, I have used both versions, and iTunes on the Mac is much faster and more consistant with MacOSX. I still have an x86 machine for running windows, but my most of my work is done on my Powerbook. Once you have tried the Mac it is hard to go back to the Windows box.. So from personal experience, I believe this could be true.

This article seems to miss the obvious: all iPod users are iTunes users, and although the iPod interface is a joy, it's the iTunes interface that introduces the "look and feel" of OS X to PC iPod users. The fact that Apple broke with UI guidelines on the PC, led many to argue that iTunes for Windows was bloated and slow. But now it seems clear that for Apple it was paramount to keep the iTunes experience as close to OS X as possible.

If these numbers are correct (and pan out) then Apple's "gamble" turned out to be correct.

I am not normally this brusque, but I think the occasion so merits. Are you misinformed or simply incredibly stupid?

I simply cannot understand how all iTunes (a free download) users could be iPod users (an expensive peripheral). Given that iTunes is bundled with the iPod rather than vice versa, and that unless you are particularly political in your choice of OS, the iPod as-good-as requires iTunes as its computer-to-peripheral interface, how can iPod > iTunes?

Further, you seem to suggest that iTunes requires you to buy all the music stored therein. I am worried that their are people reading this site who are this uninformed. My iTunes Library is full of >20Gb worth of MP3s, mostly ripped from CDs - I have one iTunes Music Store-bought AAC file. Therefore those who "choose not to pay fees to download music" (i.e. those who download MP3s) will find iTunes an excellent interface for their "borrowed" collection.

I knew they were planting subliminal messages in my mp3s... because as soon as I got my ipod I started craving other mac products, like an ibook, or an imac.
*puts on tinfoil hat* It's a conspiracy and this "study" proves it's working!!

6% of fresh fruit consumers have made the switch from PCs to Macs. An additional 7 percent of the apple eaters said they are planning to dump their old PC for an Apple machine; it's not clear, however from the results mentioned whether there's a strong causal relationship here.

I saw this article a while ago, and then ran a few numbers in my head. Given the number of ipods Apple sells is a little under the number of computers sold, in an average quarter, this is not really surprising at all. I don't think the correlation is really meaningful. Slightly less than 6% of Apple's new computer customers have also bought ipods. Given the overlap between people into high tech gadgets and people with enough money to afford an ipod or a mac, I'm surprised these numbers aren't higher.

ok lets settle this... the iPod is not the only way to listen to music, and the mac is not the only way to use an iPod. I wish most users could understand this. Of course I guess if you are going to drop the $10,000 to legitimatly fill your iPod you might as well also throw in a $4,000 computer to go with it.

As apple has said time and time again, they had hopes of the Ipod's influence leading towards more PC to Mac converts.

While initialy this hardly proved true, it's a very strong sales pitch to have a constant companion with an apple logo on it.

The near ubiquity, and total inunduation of ipods being everywhere also goes a long way towards making apple look like a damn good brand (if they do the ipods so well, the must be good at computers)

I think if apple keeps hammering away at highly tailored and very well-made digital appliances, there computer market share will continue to grow as people put trust in their products.

Though id rather see the specifics of this data to see whether it has any real merit.

Probably a much more intresting question is how apple is going to be able to increase their market share outside the US/japan. While your typical developed high GDP citizen can afford apple's products, getting apple products into the hands of less wealthy countries is a big stumbling block that needs to be addressed if they want to get their hands on the largest emerging computing markets.

I'd used Macs for web development in a previous job, and had always liked OS X. I was ecstatic when iTunes was released for the PC, as it was the singularly best program for managing large music collections I'd ever seen.

When I got my new job, one of the first things I did is shell out for an iPod to replace my crappy car CD changer. The Apple design philosophy appealed to me, and the incredible ease-of-use of both iTunes and the iPod were a big factor.

Last month I bought an iBook - the fact that they dropped the price, bumped up the CPU speed, and added AirPort Express for free was enough to get me off the fence. I wanted a laptop that was lighter than my old Compaq which weighs more than Kirstie Allie after camping out at a Royal Fork for a week. The iBook was light, priced competitively, and had all the features I want.

I had been trying to get my WinXP Home laptop to connect to the shared files on my XP Pro desktop for days, and finally just gave up. The iBook not only saw the network, but just asked for the password to connect. That was it. No hastle, no fiddling with network setup, no hunting through poorly documented and frequently useless configuration pages. AirPort has no trouble connecting to any wireless network I can throw at it.

My next machine may well be a Mac. It runs the software I need to be productive, the UNIX underpinnings mean that I have not only all the UNIX tools I'm used to from vim to Apache, but I also have a beautiful and usable GUI to go with it.

I hated Macs before. The "classic" Mac OS never appealed to me in the slightest. But Mac OS X is a dream to use, from running Photoshop to using it as a test server with the built-in copy of Apache.

OS X just "gets it". It is by far the best OS I've used, and iTunes gives Windows users a preview of how well Mac software works. The iPod and iTunes are the perfect "gateway drug" into full-fledged Mac addiction. Macs have always been a niche product, and Apple has always been a niche retailer. But if the iPod helps drive even a small number of PC users towards the Apple platform, it's a net gain to Apple on top of the incredibly strong sales of the iPod line.

No matter how you look at it, if the "halo effect" is real, it's a Good Thing(tm) for Apple, and probably for the industry in general, because it proves that there are legitimate alternatives to Windows for the non-techie crowd.

I don't know if this article is believable, but one thing that I've experienced that adds to its credibility at least to me is that I've noticed how many people out there will not download or try itunes. It's a free program. It runs on PCs. It has killer cataloging capabilities, localized network streaming capabilities (I run an iTunes streamer for all my mp3s at home to my stereo). The music store has TONS of 'indie' level bands, so phat chance of not finding something. And the burning and sound effects as well. Sheesh.

Yet I know people who are so simple minded they will not even try the thing. One guy I know, who won't d/l it told me to run out and buy this album by killswitch engage. I told him I'd catch it on iTunes. He of course dismissed this idea, saying they'd never have that kind of album. Well we did an indie band run down of his entire collection, chose 10 bands, and 8 out of ten was on iTunes.

I guess my point is, that, from a computer scientist's viewpoint like my own, I don't care what you run, as I XP, Linux, and Macs, and love them all equally, but if you're going to badmouth a product, at least have the nuts to TRY the thing... especially if it's frigging free. How about just try it, Scott?

But back to my original point... it's that move that makes the person switch, not the actual performance of availability of software or other crazy usual analyses. They don't care if it's better or worse. People stick to computing platforms as if they are political ones oddly (ok THAT doesn't make sense either, bad example), regardless of whtether or not the platform actually suits them 100%. I know musicians using PCs who won't use macs. I know business majors who use Macs who won't use PCs.

Am I odd for trying to see the good in every platform? Sheesh, you should see my political beliefs...

I have ripping & burning software (EAC & Nero) which both do a better job than iTunes. I already have organisation software (JRMC)

If you wanted one basic app do do all of the above list you would want iTunes. You != Everyone, in particular Everyone != tech savvy.

The import process is a pain in the behind

You put in a CD and push the button on the top right hand side that says import. Or, if you are particularly lazy, you set the preference that says "import songs on CD insertion". How is this a pain in the behind?

It's a bit of a resource hog

Does it hog more resources than EAC, Nero, and JRMC all running at once? Genuinely curious.

and the interface is nicely non-standard

Or if you wanted too look at it differently, Windows interface is non-standard. As many other comments have pointed out, this is an Apple product ported to Windows made to function as closely as possible to OSX, so, the interface is actually pretty close to "standard" to OSX.

When a Nokia phone comes out with 20GB storage, will you be able to load your iTunes onto that?

YES. Yes, you will. The only songs that have Apple's DRM on them are songs purchased from Apple's iTunes Music Store; that is, downloaded.

The songs that you rip from your own CDs you can rip to either MP3, AAC, Apple Lossless, AIFF, or even.WAV. None of these formats have DRM, as it would be naturally pretty stupid to encode your own song library with DRM restrictions. Even AAC is an open format; while Apple's store does use a form of AAC, it lays on a DRM that is not standard, and not the same format as what you get when you rip it yourself.

So, to repeat--yes. The music stays your own, and you will be able to put it on anything that can understand your choice of format, be it MP3 or AAC, including a 20GB Nokia phone or a 1TB TiVo. Just don't download anything that you have to pay for.

until all those iPods start exploding [wired.com] and giving people brain cancer [radar3.com] like cell phones, and getting them arrested [liquidgeneration.com].

Then they will see they were wrong for deserting me. Our product is safe: it doesn't explode, give you cancer, or get you arrested. What is security if not safety? I'm the Chief Software Architect, for it, you know.

I switched from PC to Mac after I got my iPod. The iPod wasn't the main reason I switched, but it was the final argument. I was tired of all of the viruses, exploits, etc.. on Windows, as well as all of the other crap Windows users put up with every day. My switch to Mac had been slowly brewing from the day Mac OS X first came out.

And yes, I did try Linux, but I always wound up at the same point after installing it: "Ok, now what?" and never having an answer to that question.

another result mentioned in this article [nwsource.com] is that 199 out of the 200 people surveyed were happy with their iPod.

That's a pretty incredible result for any consumer electronics gadget.

Also, I believe no one surveyed was unhappy with the lack of Ogg Vorbis support. In fact, when asked about whether Ogg was important to them, the most common answer was "I only like Ogg at Christmas with a little nutmeg on top.":)

They use the same paradigm:1) High standards2) Design and user interface are the priority3) Quality components4) Style and marketing5) Priced higher than most competitors as a result

Since both a Mac and an iPod basically seem to use the same business model, why is it that iPods are so successful now? Is it because most people simply find it easier to save up a few hundred bucks for a nice music player versus a couple thousand for a much nicer computing experience? Is it due to the "network effect" of "all my friends have pc's, so I won't get a mac" (hehe "all my friends have spyware and viruses, I guess it's normal for me to also have them")? Perhaps the iPod was able to break out of this network effect and create one of its own? What do you folks think?

Only problem is 5.They're not priced higher than most competitors with comparable features and capabilities.

They're perceived to be priced higher because they don't offer a low-end (POS) to match up against the competition that are driven by the low-end market that those other manufacturers pander to. On top of that, there is no other company that offers the ease-of-use, integration, stability and security that Apple can offer out of the box.

I think the very fact that Apple is still in business, AND selling non-x86 computers running their own proprietary OS is success enough. Think about how many other computer companies have either died out or capitulated to the Wintel camp.

They don't have to put anyone out of business. They just have to sell a few million machines a year. Comparing Apple to most other computer companies is like comparing a Diamler/Benz to a GM. People by other brands because they need a car. People by a Benz because they wa

I've been a fairly enthusiastic PC user (building and upgrading my own PCs) for a little over a decade. Just over a year ago I was in the market for a digital audio player to get me across the Atlantic Ocean for vacation (I haven't found a drug yet that lets me sleep on an airplane). At that time, a 512MB player was going for about $250. The 15GB iPod was about $100 more. So I figured I might as well future-proof myself.

It was a brilliant piece of consumer electronics -- intuitive, functional, and downright slick-looking. And then they announced the iPod mini, and my wife's lust-o-meter got pegged. We took a trip to the Apple store "just to look" and ended up looking at everything else in the store as well. We didn't go home with an iPod mini, but we did go home with a 12.1" iBook. To share.

Shortly thereafter, we'd saved enough Amazon.com points to get an iPod mini on the cheap. His and hers, now. But the mini meant that the iBook would now be the sync machine of choice... no more sharing! So we waited around for a deal on PowerBooks and picked up a 12" model. His and hers, and loving it!

So yeah, we're DINK without too many expenses. And I still maintain and use my PC. But I can guarantee that we wouldn't have even considered a Mac if it hadn't been for an iPod. Of course, that's just our personal experience, but how many more must think the same way?

I got an ipod in July last year. Had been enjoying it, using iTunes on a Toshiba laptop happily, but in the back of my mind entertained the thought of investigating Macs. OS9 and less weren't even an option, but the BSD basis and command line got my attention. I still had ignored the first couple of releases of OSX as they had coverage of being slow as a wet week.

In the end the decision was forced upon me. My laptop HD failed about 3 days before I was heading overseas for 3 weeks. Did some quick research and ended up getting a PowerBook and it has been great.

I hate going back to XP now, I only do it for certain work applications now. Happily connecting to linux servers regularly. Things do just work so much more smoothly and are more reliable. I look after 4 PC laptops in our small business, and windows wireless is so flaky under XPSP2. I have no troubles.

Microsoft Office 2004 on Mac is much better than 2003 on PCs, and interoperates with no problems. And its great being able to open a shell and rsync to backup the important stuff on the servers. I'm starting to find a good range of open source software to use as well. iSync is great as I can sync iCal and Addressbook to my Palm, K700i phone and ipod all at once. Only real downsides I have is that there is no Visio or Project available (otherwise I'd be able to move the rest of our work laptops to Macs as well, Virtual PC is OK but not suitable for my other users) or there is no decent New Zealand mapping software that runs natively. Hopefully these will be remedied over time though one means or other.

Three of my friends at college have made the switch to OSX over this past summer. One of them told me that the iPod was his "gateway drug" to becoming a Mac user. The other two quickly agreed that they became converts in a similar way. One saw an OSX demo in the Apple section of a Comp USA while buying an iPod and the other was introduced to Macs when asking a friend about his Mac and iPod before buying one.

Seeing as none of them are particuarly computer literate, I've helped a few of them with various applications. As a result I have become a proponent of Macs for technically-challeneged people. They are in a technological bliss I have never seen with the average casual user.

Instead of continuing the Linux crusade, I suggest techies push OSX on people. It will be an easier switch and will eventually help everyones anti-Microsoft cause. In the end it will even help Linux because software will be built with Windows/Unix cross platformity in mind.

Build a dell with the same amount of functionnalities (not the first entry-level $300 machine), add the software that's bundled with the iBook (I'll exempt you of finding a GarageBand alternative) and then compare the prices.

Ya, maybe if you would stop maligning them for a second and actually think about what people other than yourself look for in a computer, maybe you would see why. You may not like Macs, thats fine, but guess what, you are not the ultimate authority when it comes to what people should like. Different people have different tastes. Oh, and as for overpriced, maybe you should look at an iBook sometime. They are very competitive with the rough equivalent of the pc notebook, so much so that a lot of people buy

Find me a PC laptop that comes out of the box with firewire, USB 2.0, 4+ hours battery life, small form factor, runs office natively, offers X windows support, intergrates all the GNU tools into the OS, and does it all for less than 1200 bucks out the door...Apple builds the best notebooks, IMO, because they offer the best form factor/battery life/software package out there.

I'd been stuck on Windows for the longest time because I had to interoperate with clients who insisted on exchanging Micro$oft Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and so forth. On top of that, I was doing Java development for those clients. (Star Office didn't cut it, at the time.) Yes, it was a living hell, especially for someone who was nursed on SVR3.

Finally I played with a PowerBook: it had genuine Micro$oft Office from the Redmond behemoth itself. It had a killer Java virtual machine. But best of all, I could pop up a bash shell and run vi on my files. And all with glistening eye-candy.

I was in heaven.

So, I've got two of the systems. Yes, they're overpriced, but they're also damn stable and they stay out of my way, like Windows, but I can get in the way, unlike Windows.

(Oh, and it was after that that I got the iPod. But I'll never go back to Windows. And zealots out there, relax, I've got two Linux systems (and even a FreeBSD system) in my server closet.)

Maybe a HIGH-END Mac, but:1) not a laptop- Mac laptops are pretty damn price-competitive with PC laptops2) not a consumer-level Mac- Prices are also very competitive3) Not a used Mac- If you want to try it without too much risk, get a used Mac on eBay. You'll likely be able to sell it for not much cheaper than you bought it for, if you don't like it (since Macs hold value much better than PC's). And it thus won't dent your precious mortgage payment.